by Sue Harrison
“No,” Cries-loud said. “I will keep the name I have. My mother gave it to me.”
“And you would honor her, the one who killed your own grandfather?” She snorted. “There are those who deserve honor and those who do not.”
He looked into her face, and she was suddenly uncomfortable under his gaze.
“Perhaps you are right,” he said, “but I need a person of honor to give me that name. I’ll ask Chakliux.”
She gritted her teeth and turned her left side to the fire. “Rather you should name yourself,” she said. “And while you are thinking of a name, think also on this riddle.”
She glanced back over her shoulder at him, and saw she had his interest. Riddles were a game played often among those people who had lived in the Cousin River village. More than a game, riddles could teach, but they were also a way for women to say what needed to be said when men were too stubborn to hear the words outright.
“Look, what do I see?” she asked.
“It falls in autumn, taken by the wind,
but the tree still lives.”
“A leaf,” Squirrel said, interrupting their conversation.
“That’s a simple one,” Black Stick told her, curling his lips into a sneer.
“And so you are right,” K’os said, but she looked hard into Cries-loud’s face. “The wind is always simple, nae’? And we always understand where it comes from and whence it blows.”
For a moment, Cries-loud’s eyes widened, then he feigned indifference. Did he understand that the riddle was about his mother, Red Leaf? K’os was not sure. But there were still at least two days’ walking to the Walrus village, probably more.
Perhaps during that time, she would tell him that his mother once lived in the Four Rivers village, and that she had been wife to the trader Cen. K’os might not let him know that Red Leaf was dead. But she would probably tell him that he had a sister there, Sok’s daughter. The girl would have five or six summers by now. If Cries-loud knew about her, he might decide to visit the Four Rivers village.
What a delight if Sok found out that Cen had taken Red Leaf as his wife after Sok had driven her away to die. How would Sok feel if he knew that Cen had claimed Sok’s daughter as his own? And what would Cen do when he discovered that Red Leaf was the Near River woman who had killed Daes, the woman Cen had loved above all others? K’os smiled as she thought of Cen raising Red Leaf’s daughter as his own, the girl given Daes’s name. Surely that name did not rest easily, bestowed as it was on Red Leaf’s daughter. Too bad Red Leaf was dead. She deserved the agony of Cen’s anger when he finally knew the truth.
K’os swallowed her smile and called out to Wolf Head, “Which lean-to is mine?”
“You will sleep here with me,” he said to her.
She gave him no argument, though her night might be better spent with Squirrel or Black Stick. It was easy to win boys with new pleasures.
She crawled on hands and knees to the back of Wolf Head’s lean-to, said to him, “Unless you want me near the front to tend the fire.”
“I will take care of the fire,” he told her.
“And have the warmest place to sleep,” she muttered under her breath.
“I’ve heard enough of your complaints today, woman. It’s your fault that we had to leave our warm lodges and take you to the Walrus.”
He pulled a rope from his pack, bound her ankles a handbreadth apart to hobble her, then tied the other end of the rope to his left wrist. Once they lay down, she brazenly reached over to pat his groin. To her surprise, she found that his penis was full and hard.
He slapped her hands away and said, “Some things a man cannot control, but there are always choices.”
“What will it hurt?” she asked. “Surely you have heard that I am good at pleasing men.”
“I’ve heard the stories. Who has not? But you were wife to my son. There are taboos.”
“Once, long ago, you told me you had no son.”
“Once, long ago,” he said, “I was wrong.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE WALRUS VILLAGE WAS set near the sea, and during their last day of walking, Wolf Head led them across the wide silt plain. It was soft and wet underfoot, full of hidden rivulets, cold water seeping from the ice that had been driven ashore during winter—thick gray and blue slabs ramping and grinding themselves into hills and mountains, now rotting in the sun.
The silt held secrets, bubbling springs and sinkholes that would drop them suddenly to their knees, suck them down until they had to fight their way out. The dogs whined under their breaths as they walked, and K’os wished for a cold north wind to freeze the ground. But the wind blew from the west and by midmorning brought rain. Then K’os’s wishes changed from thoughts of firm ground to a longing for one of Aqamdax’s fine waterproof gut parkas. When Aqamdax had been her slave, K’os had owned several.
How much their lives had changed from those days, K’os thought. Now she was the slave, and Aqamdax was wife, her husband leader of the elders. Their village was strong with the hunting prowess of the Near River men, and secured by the wisdom of the Cousin River People. Who else but Chakliux could have convinced two villages that had nearly destroyed one another to come together as one people and live in peace?
Then, in her wish-making, K’os realized that she held one desire above all others: to return to that day long ago when she had found Chakliux as a baby, abandoned on the Grandfather Rock, given to the wind because of his bent web-toed otter foot.
If she had known then what her life would become, she would have left him to die.
Her right foot sank into the mud, and she faltered, catching herself on hands and knees. The men did not offer to help her, and she fought against the weight of her pack. When she regained her feet, she set her mouth firmly, rolled her tongue over the curses that she did not allow herself to speak, and lived again in her thoughts.
She had heard stories of shamans who were able to visit the moon and had ways to kill people with words alone, but she had never heard of anyone who could return to days already lived. So there was no hope of changing what had happened with Chakliux. Perhaps what she really wanted was another chance to raise him, this time with the wisdom she had garnered during her long life.
She wiped her face, sluiced away the rain. Fog hovered on the horizon. She blinked and looked again. Fog or smoke? Were they that close to the Walrus village?
She quickened her pace until she caught up with Black Stick. He was walking with his head down, the back of his hood taking the brunt of the rain.
“My eyes are old,” she told him. “Do I see smoke or only fog?”
He looked up, and after a moment he stopped, frowned, then called to his brother. “Squirrel, is that smoke?”
“It’s the village,” Wolf Head shouted back. “We’re almost there.”
Then K’os began to shiver, her teeth clattering so hard that the curses she had held silent began to bleed out from the corners of her mouth. The cloud of her breath turned dark with whispered hate, and her words spun in the wind until they reached Wolf Head’s ears.
He strode back, fisted a hand, and shook it in her face. “If your curses continue, I will kill you now, no matter what Chakliux wants.” He made a sign of protection against her, then fell back to walk behind her.
K’os raised a mittened hand to her lips, pressed against her teeth until she was able to force the curses down her throat. Then, to battle her unease, she fixed her mind on the possibilities that would be open to her in a new village.
The Walrus lodges were stone and hide, set with their backs toward the sea on bluffs well up from the beach, away from the reach of waves. Wolf Head told the others to wait as he went on alone. K’os’s heart rattled like a stone caught in the cage of her ribs. She had been sure she would be able to lure one of the boys to her bed during this journey and prise his loyalty from the others, thus giving her a chance to escape if she needed to. But Wolf Head had been cautious and kept her tied e
ach night.
The three boys stood together in the rain, their hands clasped around their throwing spears. K’os huddled behind them, in the lee of their bodies, struggling to keep the dogs from each other’s throats. She noticed that Cries-loud and Black Stick looked like men, while Squirrel still had a boy’s thin shoulders and meatless legs. Squirrel and Black Stick clutched their spears to their chests, but Cries-loud held his weapon casually at his side, as though he often came to new villages and was not afraid, ready for either friendship or enmity.
Black Stick made a nervous dance, shifting from one foot to the other, and Squirrel squeaked out complaints in words that broke in mockery of the man’s voice he would someday own.
K’os sidled close to Cries-loud and asked, “Did you figure out my riddle?”
“Your riddle?” he asked, his words edged with irritation. “We have no time for riddles.” He turned and looked at her, then sighed and said, “It’s about my mother.”
“You do not care that I know where she went when she left the Cousin River village?”
“I have a wife now. I don’t need my mother.”
“But what about a sister?” she asked him. “It’s always a good thing for a man to have a sister.”
“My sister is alive?” he asked.
“Last I knew,” she said. “A man who lives in the Four Rivers village has claimed her as daughter. Perhaps you remember him. His name is Cen. He’s a trader.”
“Cen?”
K’os laughed. “You’re surprised?” she asked. “Your mother was no fool. You could learn from her. Cunning like the wolf. You wonder how I know? When Chakliux drove me from your hunting camp, I walked to the nearest village. Think for a moment. What village would that be?”
“The Four Rivers village,” he said softly.
“Don’t listen to her, Cries-loud,” said Squirrel. “She lies. Everything she says is a lie.”
Cries-loud opened his mouth as if to reply, but he said nothing, and finally turned back to watch the village.
K’os spoke into the side of his hood, leaning close so Squirrel and Black Stick could not hear what she said. “You remember Cen?” she whispered.
Cries-loud spun, and she saw by the set of his jaw that he was angry. “I don’t believe you. Why would Cen take her as wife? She killed Daes, the woman he loved, and she tried to kill his son Ghaden.”
“Cen is a trader,” K’os said. “Think how many women he sees, how many villages he visits. Why would he remember what Red Leaf looked like? The last time he saw her in the Near River village, no one knew she was the killer. He had no reason to remember your mother’s face.”
“He would remember her name.”
K’os laughed at him. “In the Four Rivers village they call her Gheli.”
“So she’s not dead,” Cries-loud said softly. And though K’os knew he was speaking to himself, she answered.
“She wasn’t dead.”
The anger in his eyes was replaced by dread, and he was suddenly still.
“She died,” K’os said, and found her heart lifted by the pain in Cries-loud’s face. “While I was still living in the village, she died.”
“How?” he asked.
Almost, she told him. The words—an illness of belly and bowel—were already sliding up her throat. But she caught herself, held them back. Cries-loud would think of poison, and he would blame her for the death. Instead she told him, “From childbirth and an illness that followed.”
“The birth of my sister?” he asked.
K’os hid a smile. He was good at riddles himself, this boy. Good at snares. He should be an old woman. He had the cunning to catch and strangle. “Your sister was born before I found my way to the Four Rivers village,” she told him. “Cen put another baby in your mother’s belly, too soon after your sister’s birth. But what else would you expect from a man who measures life by what he owns? Your mother died, and the baby also, a son.”
She saw the sorrow in his face, so made her voice low and sad. “I’m sorry. The loss of a mother is not an easy thing. Perhaps the knowledge that you have a sister will lift some of your pain.”
He turned away from her, and K’os crouched down on her haunches, rested her elbows on her knees, waited for Wolf Head to return.
Yehl listened patiently to the River man who called himself Wolf Head. The man was a warrior, but he had begun to grow old, and there was a weariness in his eyes that spoke of loss.
Yehl could understand pain like that. He still mourned his father, a shaman, strong not only of mind, but of spirit.
Only once during all the years of the old man’s life had his judgment been faulty. Yehl leaned toward Wolf Head as though he were listening, but his eyes were seeing that time when his father was still alive. Then men easily brought in enough walrus to feed everyone in the village, enough seals for oil and hides. Their children were healthy and strong, their women eager to please. But all things changed when his father had welcomed a group of River traders to the village.
Yehl seldom allowed himself to think about what had happened. With a woman as powerful as Aqamdax—no doubt a witch who carried evil as easily as other women carry amulets—surely her curses would come back to them if Yehl allowed her to live in his thoughts.
For a year he had mourned his father’s death. For a year he had kept himself away from women, had cut his flesh and bled into the hearth of his lodge. Had cut his hair and torn his parkas. When that year had ended, he took his father’s name, Yehl, and also took his place as shaman. What better way to keep the old man’s spirit alive and in this village?
Even now, as he spoke with Wolf Head, Yehl felt his father hovering over them, and the old man’s strength gave him confidence. After all, what could these River People do to harm this village? They were only traders, looking for a few baubles. There was a slave, too, Wolf Head had told him, a woman to carry their packs, a woman good in a man’s bed. What would it hurt if they stayed a day or two? Weren’t the Walrus Hunters known for their hospitality?
“Their chief hunter has given us permission to come into the village and trade,” Wolf Head said.
Squirrel snorted out laughter. “And what did we bring to trade besides this old woman?”
“I told you to bring something to trade, nae’?” Wolf Head said. “You have dogs to carry your packs.”
“Young men must save their caribou hides for bride prices,” said Black Stick.
“That’s your choice,” Wolf Head told him. “Don’t complain about it to me.”
Black Stick scowled. Wolf Head lifted his chin at K’os, gestured for her to follow, then said to Cries-loud, “You three do what you want. Stay here or come. Don’t make any trouble with their hunters.”
Wolf Head led, and K’os was next with the dogs. Cries-loud, Squirrel, and Black Stick walked behind them, each holding weapons, eyes challenging anyone who came close.
The lodge was set near the center of the village, and when she saw it, K’os began to long for the heat of a hearthfire.
She tried to accompany Wolf Head into the entrance tunnel, but he pushed her back, made her wait while the boys crowded ahead. Finally, after she had staked the dogs and fed them, she was allowed in, told to bring her packs. Squirrel held the inside doorflap open as she stooped to maneuver the packs through the door.
Her knees creaked as she stepped into the lodge, and a cramp spasmed across her shoulders when she stood to her full height. But the warmth was wonderful, soft against her face after so many days walking the tundra.
Wolf Head spoke to the Walrus men in their language. He spoke slowly and with many pauses, but K’os knew only those Walrus words she had picked up as a young woman when she welcomed a Walrus trader into her bed, and those were not words men spoke to discuss trade goods.
The Walrus leader wore many necklaces, and his hair was strung with beads and feathers. He held himself straight and stiff, but K’os thought she could see something close to fear in his eyes. He was tall, thi
ck both of arm and of belly. His nose was as narrow as a gull’s bone and had been broken and poorly set. He squinted when he spoke, as if his words came not only through the efforts of his mouth but also his eyes.
He called himself Yehl. K’os knew she had heard the name before. Was there not some shaman from the Walrus people who had also used that name? But that had been years ago. Perhaps this new leader was son or grandson of the old shaman, and the power of that man’s name had clouded the people’s eyes, so they did not realize that this new Yehl was less than they thought.
K’os was so intent on watching him that she nearly missed Wolf Head’s signal. He wanted her beside him. She tried to move gracefully under the weight of her pack, and when she came into the light from the smoke hole, she set a smile on her face. Wolf Head murmured for her to show Yehl one of the parkas she had made. She crouched, untied her pack, and pulled out a ground squirrel parka, soft and warm.
She watched Yehl as he unrolled it, clenched her teeth in triumph when she saw the wanting in his eyes. For the first time, he looked at her. She made her smile into a slave’s smile, shy and humble, and she wondered how much of her young beauty still showed in a face that was growing old. Even her hair had begun to betray her with strands of white, and her hands grew more gnarled each year.
Yehl asked a question and Wolf Head grunted an answer. He nodded at K’os and told her, “He asks if you have ever been a wife.”
In a quiet voice, K’os said, “I had two good husbands before I was taken as slave. One was chief hunter of the Cousin River village. Perhaps you have heard of those people.”
Wolf Head translated her words, and Yehl spoke in reply. “He knows the village,” Wolf Head said.
“Perhaps then he has heard of my husband Ground Beater.”
When Wolf Head asked, Yehl inclined his head, considered for a moment, then raised his fingers in the traders’ sign for no.
Wolf Head spoke, then explained, “I told him that Ground Beater was a good man.”
“Thank you,” said K’os, though she knew he thought only of himself. The more he could get for her, the better for him, the better for the River Village.
